Rabbit Stew with Mushrooms

I have been bugging Hank Shaw for years for a good rabbit stew recipe and he’s finally delivered. Thanks Hank! ~Elise

Years ago, I asked Michelin-starred Chef Dominique Crenn what dish she was most proud of. She said rabbit with mushrooms, the way her mother made it.

I never did get her recipe, but I love rabbit, and love mushrooms, so here is my take on a dish I imagine Chef Crenn might like.

This dish celebrates the onset of cooler weather. The combination of rabbit (you can easily substitute chicken if you are unable to find rabbit) mushrooms, butter, stock and roasted garlic are as wonderful as that first crisp day, when leaves are falling, schools are back in session, and football is on the TV.

Mushrooms come into their own in fall, and I highly recommend you use as many varieties of fresh mushrooms as you can get your hands on. Most supermarkets will have at least a couple kinds, and the more varieties the better.

Dried porcini mushrooms are readily available, and they add a lot to the flavor of this stew, as does their soaking water. You need to strain that water to get out any bits of dirt or grit, but it’s easily done with a paper towel or coffee filter.

Rabbit Stew with Mushrooms Recipe

Prep time:45 minutes

Cook time:1 hour, 45 minutes

Yield:Serves 4

Rabbit are often available at specialty markets, fresh or frozen, or can be ordered by your local butcher. If you can find fresh rabbit, have your butcher piece it out for you. Otherwise, see How to Cut Up a Rabbit.

Alternatively, you can simply brown the whole rabbit, and put it into the stew whole. Then remove it later and pick off the meat.

There is an optional step to making this stew taken from classic French cooking (Antonin Careme) that transforms a good dish into a great one. Mash the rabbit or chicken’s liver, mix it with crème fraiche or sour cream, then push it through a fine sieve.

The result is a pink slurry that will thicken and enrich your sauce. If you choose to take this step, do not let your stew boil once the liver-crème fraiche mixture is in it or it will curdle. If you want to go halfway with this final step, mix in a large dollop of crème fraiche or sour cream in at the end.

Ingredients

1 ounce of dried porcini mushrooms

2 heads of garlic

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 1/2 pounds mixed mushrooms

4 Tbsp butter

1 rabbit

3 large shallots, chopped

1 cup sherry or white wine

1-2 cups mushroom soaking water

3 cups chicken stock

1 tablespoon fresh thyme, or 2 teaspoons dried

1 large parsnip, peeled and chopped into large pieces

Salt

2 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley

Method

2 Cut rabbit into pieces and sprinkle with salt: Cut the rabbit into serving pieces and salt well. Let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes. Use all of the rabbit in this dish – you can fish out the ribs and other parts that have little or no meat on them later; they will add vital flavor to your stew.

3 Optional Step with rabbit liver: If you are going to make the crème fraiche-liver thickener, mince the rabbit liver finely and move it to a small bowl. Vigorously mix in about 1 1/2 tablespoons crème fraiche or sour cream. Now put the mixture into a fine-meshed sieve over a bowl and push it through with a rubber spatula. Reserve in the fridge.

4 Roast garlic: Preheat the oven to 375°F. Slice the top third off the heads of garlic and drizzle the olive oil over them. Wrap the heads loosely in foil and bake for 45 minutes to an hour, or until cloves are soft and brown. Set aside to cool.

5 Prep fresh mushrooms, dice rehydrated porcini, save mushroom soaking liquid: Chop off the tough ends of the mushroom stems and either discard or save for stock. Roughly chop or slice the mushrooms and set aside. Dice the rehydrated porcini. Pour the porcini soaking water though a paper towel into another bowl. Reserve the liquid.

6 Dry sauté fresh mushrooms: Heat a thick-bottomed large pot on high heat for 1 minute. Add the mushrooms and shake the pot. Stirring continuously, dry sauté the mushrooms until they release their water.

Turn the heat down to medium-high. Use a wooden spoon to scrape up any mushroom bits off the bottom of the pan. Salt the mushrooms lightly. When the mushroom liquid is mostly gone, remove them to a bowl.

7 Brown rabbit in butter: Add the butter to the pot. When the butter melts, turn the heat down to medium. Pat the rabbit pieces dry and place in the pan.

Work in batches if you need to, do not crowd the pan. Brown the pieces well on all sides. Remove the rabbit pieces from the pot and set aside.

8 Sauté shallots: Increase the the heat to medium-high and add the shallots to the pot. Sauté until the shallots are nicely wilted, about 3 minutes. Stir from time to time. Sprinkle salt over everything.

9 Squeeze roasted garlic into mushroom soaking liquid: While the shallots are cooking, squeeze the roasted garlic into the mushroom soaking water you have strained, then whisk it together.

10 Deglaze shallots with sherry: Add the sherry or white wine to the shallots in the pot. Use a wooden spoon to scrape off any browned bits on the bottom of the pot. Let the sherry boil down by half. Add the mushroom-roasted garlic mixture and the stock and stir to combine.

11 Add thyme, mushrooms, rabbit, parsnips, bring to simmer and cook: Add the thyme, all the mushrooms, the rabbit and the parsnips and bring everything to a bare simmer.

Simmer gently for 90 minutes. You want the meat to be close to falling off the bone. If you want, you can fish out all the rabbit pieces and pull the meat off the bone – it makes the dish less attractive, but it will be easier to eat. Taste for salt right before you serve and add if needed. Stir in the parsley.

12 Add liver mixture if using: If you are using the crème fraiche-liver mixture to thicken your stew, turn off the heat. When the stew stops bubbling, add the mixture and let it heat through for a minute before serving.

Serve with a crusty loaf of bread, a green salad and either a hearty white wine, a dry rose or a light red wine.

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A former restaurant cook and journalist, Hank Shaw is the author of three wild game cookbooks as well as the James Beard Award-winning wild foods website Hunter Angler Gardener Cook. His latest cookbook is Buck, Buck, Moose, a guide to working with venison. He hunts, fishes, forages and cooks near Sacramento, CA.

Tasted great the first time trying it, and was able to impress the girls friend. I had to sway from the recipe to what I had on hand. Used red wine and two cans of Campbell gold mushroom instead of broth.

Took longer to prep but I also had to cut up the rabbit. Broth is very flavorful. I used carrots instead of parsnips and also added navy beans. I tried the liver-creme fraiche step and added a spoonful after I took it off the heat. It curdled right away so that was disappointing, but I figured out that if I took some broth out and mixed the creme fraiche with it then added that back into the pot, it didnt curdle. Overall great recipe!

Delicious with our local chanterelles and home-dried shitake mushrooms. I 4/5 stars because it takes a very long time to prepare (close to 3 hours). I recommend reading through the recipe the day before you plan to make the dish, because it takes a lot longer than we expected and there are several steps that can be thoughtfully staged to reduce the prep time. We substituted carrots for the parsnips and added turnips and potatoes. We did not add salt anywhere except to the fresh rabbit, and we rinsed that off before pan frying. We also used red wine, which I’m sure changed the character of the dish substantially. The broth is incredible.

The stew came out pretty good, the family enjoyed it. 1.5 lbs of mushrooms is a lot btw, more than what is pictured, so you can go lighter on them if need be. If presentation is something you’re worried about, this isn’t the most beautiful stew (you could probably substitute the parsnips for carrots or something like that to add color). Also, I simmered the stew with a lid on, and it worked just fine. The entire thing, with cutting up the rabbit took me closer to 2.5 hours to complete. Thanks for the recipe!

This is a keeper! Took rabbit off the bone and also used dry morelles. The family loved it with roasted potatoes and homemade bread. No liver, but I’m sure that would be good to. Used the rabbit liver for pate so didn’t have any to use.

Phenomenal. Served with a grenache wine for Christmas dinner along side roasted root vegetables and set on a puré of celery root. Thank goodness there are leftovers because we made two small rabbits. The stock is so flavorful!

Seriously delicious! The prep time took me longer than the recipe suggested but it was my first time chopping up a rabbit! And the instructions didn’t say whether to cover when simmering. I did and it turned out fabulous!

Hi, Morgan! Emma here, managing editor. We haven’t tried this recipe in the Instant Pot or pressure cooker yet, but it does sound like it would adapt pretty easily! I’d do steps 1 through 10 using the Saute function on the Instant Pot, and then cook the stew under high pressure for 20 minutes. If that doesn’t quite do it, then reseal the pot, pressure cook for 5 minutes, and check again. Repeat as necessary, but my guess is that 20 to 30 minutes under pressure will do the trick. Let us know how it works out!

Hi Shawna, you are going to want to sauté the onions and brown the rabbit pieces. After everything comes together, then you could conceivably cook everything together in a slow cooker. 4 hours low? Not sure about the timing.

We cooked ours in a crock pot and it turned out amazing! My family talks about this stew constantly. I prepared ours like the recipe calls for and just out each step in the crock pot for the final stewing. We put it on low for about 2 hours. It depends on how big your rabbit is. It needs to go long enough for the rabbit to pull from the bone.

I cooked rabbit for the first time. I cut marinated garlic and mushrooms first and cooked down, then browned a combination of rabbit nuggets and pork loins nuggets with sea salt, garlic powder, soy sauce and worcestershire sauce. Used 2 cans of beef broth in a stewing pot with flour, meat juices and meat. Vegetables were potatoes (white, red and sweet), yucca, green beans, radish, celery, carrots and onion. I continue seasoning with sea salt, garlic powder, worcestershire sauce and soy sauce, till you get the taste you are looking for. The rabbit I buy from a local farmer who raises all kind of animals and processes meat himself, so I know it is fresh. I actually repaired his walkin cooler for him and made a friend for life.